I did some research. The talk about resistance in America goes back to the Vietnam War. In Days of Rage by Bryan Burrough we learn that the national secretary of the SDS, Greg Calvert, said in 1966 that it was time to move "from protest to resistance." This led the radicals in the SDS to create the Weather Underground and start a campaign of bombings . People died in these bombings. Robert Fassnacht was a 33-year-old postdoctoral researcher at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Dr. Fassnacht had a wife and children and he died when radicals bombed the building he worked in on August 23, 1970. The Weather Underground wanted the violent overthrow of the U.S. Government.
Bill Ayers was a founder of the Weather Underground, along with Bernardine Dohrn, his wife. Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn did not serve time for the violence of the Weather Underground. Bill Ayers was hired by the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Bernardine Dohrn served as an adjunct professor of law at the Northwestern University School of Law. You can see why American universities are shutting down free speech as left wing hooligans are assaulting conservative speakers: Communists who want to overthrow our government have been on our college faculties for decades. Bill Ayers, in his book Prairie Fire, said he and Bernardine were revolutionary communists. Bill Buckley in his book God and Man at Yale warned us in the 1950's that socialists had taken over the economics department at Yale.
From On Resistance by Howard Caygill we see the love affair radicals have with resistance goes back to the French student rebellions in the 1960's related to the French Algerian War. The French are in love with the idea of being in a Resistance. France collapsed like a house of cards with the Nazi invasion in World War II. The French are embarrassed by how they collaborated with the Nazis. The French documentary Night and Fog about Nazi atrocities was halted by French censors because the film showed a French policeman helping the Nazis load Jews onto trains taking them to concentration camps. The film maker had to edit the film to hide the policeman's collaboration before the film was approved for release. The French cling to the French Resistance to reclaim their sense of honor. So the French have a warm spot in their heart for Resistance in general.
Many French intellectuals have been Marxists: Jacques Derrida, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Michel Foucault are the best known. They broke away from Stalinist Communism, but they stayed Marxists. Karl Marx believed in revolution. This is to say that French intellectuals have been believers in Resistance, Revolution, and Marxism for decades. In the book On Resistance, A Philosophy of Defiance by Howard Caygill you can see how the love of Resistance has spread from French intellectuals to English intellectuals. Dr. Howard Caygill also wrote Philosophy and the Black Panthers, published in the online journal Radical Philosophy. Here he says, "... back in 1970, some representatives of the Black Panthers visited Jean Genet in Paris asking for solidarity." Some members of the Black Panthers saw themselves as revolutionaries. Here is a direct link between French intellectuals and American radicals back in the 1970's. This love affair with Resistance originates in Europe; it is not an American sentiment.
On Resistance was published in 2013, years before Donald Trump was elected President. The book Phishing for Phools by George Akerlof and Robert Shiller was published in 2015 and it has a chapter titled, "The Resistance and its Heroes." This is a silly title for the chapter because it is about consumer advocates, not resistance fighters. But it shows that American professors are enthralled with the idea of resistance and have been talking about resistance before Trump ran for office.
Conclusion
What I first wondered was "What is meant by all this talk about Resistance?" My research indicates that, historically, a call to resistance is a call to violence, which is why a supporter of Bernie Sanders, James T. Hodgkinson, drove to Washington D.C. and shot Republican congressmen. Revolutionaries understand the call to resistance even if the rest of us do not. I also wondered "why did this talk about resistance pop up so quickly?" My research indicates that the far left has been talking about revolution and resistance for decades, long before Trump. Resistance talk was building to a crescendo within the far left before Trump came onto the scene. An SDS activist told journalist David Horowitz, "The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution."
I started out with some questions, did research, and drew conclusions. Please do not think of this article as an opinion piece. Think of this as open-source intelligence analysis. The best intelligence is actionable intelligence. If I have provided you with actionable intelligence, what actions are called for? People who put on masks and commit violence on college campuses need to be captured, unmasked and documented. Marilyn Buck came out of the SDS chapter at the University of Texas, Austin. Later she joined the Black Liberation Army and spent decades in prison for committing murder. Some of the young people committing violence on college campuses might be fools, but others might commit murder in the future. Their finger prints and DNA collected now might help solve murder cases in the future.
We need to be more alert to the violence from the far left. Here in Texas, Republican member of the state legislature Matt Rinaldi was physically assaulted by Democratic member Ramon Romero in May 2017, as reported by the Washington Times. We need more rigorous law enforcement to stop the escalating violence. We need to realize that the far left wanted violence in the past and wants violence today. We also need to remember that we do not repay violence with violence. We need to rely on the rule of law, but we also need to resume building intelligence dossiers on revolutionaries so we can better prosecute them when they commit crimes. Remember that Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn were never convicted for the bombings they masterminded.
There is something wrong with our education system that so many people find violence and anger appealing. We need to look at our schools to discover what has gone wrong and fix the problem of creating gullible and emotionally manipulated citizens.
Patriotism, love of America, is disappearing from our schools and our society. Nick Adams is an example of someone working to bring instruction about our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution back into our schools. Mr. Adams started Foundation for Liberty and American Greatness (FLAG) for this purpose. While writing this article I realized the importance of his work and I have made a donation to his organization. We have to do something to save our republic, or we might lose it to people who place their hope in Marxism.
Finally, for Christians, there is the appeal to God. Our founding fathers George Washington (b 1732) and John Adams (b 1735) were children during the First Great Awakening in American. Christians can pray to God for another Great Awakening so Americans can turn away from anger by turning towards God. We might feel helpless in the face of so much hostility, but we can pray.
Robert
Days of Rage by Bryan Burrough, Penguin Books, 2015, page 59 has Calvert's call to resistance. You can look up Marilyn Buck in the index of this book. I recommend this book. It is a good read and is very informative.
SDS = Students for a Democratic Society
On Resistance, A Philosophy of Defiance by Howard Caygill, Bloomsbury, New York, 2013. I do not recommend this book. It is tedious.
Note: Bernadine Dohrn has resolutely refused to apologize for her years of violence: AT HOME WITH: Bernadine Dohrn; Same Passion, New Tactics by SUSAN CHIRA, New York Times, November 18, 1993
David Horowitz's quote is from https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/6254.David_Horowitz
The article about James T. Hodgkinson is, Virginia gunman hated Republicans, and 'was always in his own little world' by Matt Pearce and Joseph Tanfani, Jun 14, 2017, Los Angeles Times online
